Don't miss this!
- Christine DiGiacomo
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
How I pray you hear the heart of the Lord in this!
Why was Jesus crying?
I took this picture when I entered Jerusalem in February, 2018, peeking through budding branches on Mt. Zion. There is something about coming into Jerusalem that is unequalled in all the world; just thinking of it makes me emotional.
History. My Savior. The Cross. A Tomb. Our Salvation.
A song: The Holy City, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nq7ZLofnpk
This is the 'Palm Sunday' path down the Mt. of Olives crossing the Kidron Valley, and going up into the old city. How we love to picture Jesus coming into Jerusalem on the back of that donkey, and can almost hear the 'hosannas' ringing in the air. Save us, we pray, O Lord!1
And yet, Luke writes that when Jesus "drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”2
Jesus did not cry dainty tears where he dabbed at the corners of his eyes, he wept bitterly at what he knew was coming. By week's end, the cheers would turn to shouts of 'crucify him!' And. they. would. He cried for his own Jewish people and what was coming.
Just 38 years later, in A.D. 70,
Rome's General Titus would destroy Jerusalem--these rocks on the Temple Mount left as a reminder--1.1 million Jews would die, 97,000 become slaves of Rome. The Temple utterly destroyed, just as Jesus had said.3
Jesus weeps as he looks out at Jerusalem...
1.Jesus weeps because of those who will reject him - yet that week; he also weeps for those who still deny and reject him today, devoid of the peace they could know.
2.Jesus weeps because he knows what is coming - their destruction.
I inquired of the Lord this morning, "Lord, why did you weep?"
I wept at what was coming, and what might have been. I wept for David's vision of the temple and Solomon's grand plan, that this city, the holy city, capital of my people, because of her apathy, she would be destroyed.
I weep today over grace given, hope rejected.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.4 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.5
I came those years ago to love even to the point of my death so that all who would receive me would know true life and real peace--salvation, and that forever.
Behold, I stand at your heart's door and knock.6 Will you open your heart and let me in? Will you believe and follow Me? One day, I will bring a New Jerusalem - Will you be there, Child?
Song about the New Jerusalem - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hy5VxG6q98
we play this on the bus as we arrive in Jerusalem!!
I've got a probing question for you:
Do you recognize when Jesus is trying to get your attention?
Because right now he is saying your name.
Christine
Love this response:
song,"More than This", Cece!
1 - Psalm 118.25
2 - Luke 19.41-44
3 - Gary Hamrick, Why Jesus Weeps
4 - John 10.11
5 - John 10.14
6 - Revelation 3.20
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